The present invention relates to a method and to an apparatus for distributing packages or the like according to characters applied to their surfaces.
Already known from DE-AS [German Published Patent Application] 2,055,837 is a sorting system for postal packages and the like, the system including an intake conveyor and a sorting station. To sort and distribute the postal packages according to different address informations, this publication provides that the packages are supplied in random order to the sorting station, are there visually checked by operators and are distributed in a suitable manner depending on the result of the check, that is, they are transferred to the appropriate transporting devices. The performance of the visual check in this prior art sorting system requires the respective package to be manually turned and flipped over until the surface bearing the applied address has been located. For further distribution, the operators must then read the address and the postal code or delivery zone, respectively, must be determined for each package.
The drawbacks of such a sorting system are, in particular, the fact that, on the average, the packages must be manually flipped over and turned repeatedly in a time consuming manner until the address can be read and the obtained address information must be processed further in a complicated manner. The drawback of a system employing automatic flipping and turning of the packages for positioning the address is the high structural and control expenditures required for this purpose.